Shakespeare and the Early Modern Self 147
that it is better to be a man or woman of compassion, a saint. He
claims that Nature does not endorse heroic values, but that Nature
is simply a blind, unknowable force to which all human life is alien.
“The Moor,” says Iago, “is of a constant, loving, noble nature”
(II.i.289). And for this Iago hates him: nobility is anathema to
him, love an illusion, and the apparent constancy of Othello’s being
is, in Iago’s world of ever- shifting perceptions and values, a rank
imposture. It is an illusion that calls to be undone.
Iago lives in the world of no meaning. Or one might say he lives
in a world in which meanings proliferate without end— which is
much the same. Nothing truly anchors Iago to his life. Seeing that
he cannot be a part of the artifi cial coherence of the established
institutional sphere— becoming Othello’s lieutenant would have
given him a fi ction of identity—he takes arms against all that appears
to be solid. And nothing appears to be more sound and stable than
Othello. Iago’s perspectivism is not a stylized condition. Nietz sche,
the son and grandson of ministers, can conceive the vertiginous
world of jostling interpretations with a smile. But Iago often seems
as disturbed as he is disturbing. He lives in the confusion of com-
peting visions, competing interpretations, without center, without
unity, without predictable form.
Iago is the force that multiplies perspectives, seeds the mental
ground with doubt, and creates complexity where ostensible sim-
plicity existed. The pro cess at times brings him satanic delight, but
at other times his plotting seems to bring him nearly as much pain
as it does Othello. On some level Iago appears to love Othello, but
for reasons that seem larger than himself, Iago must turn against the
Moor.
Iago can play the part of friend, ally, confi dante, rogue, beast,
man of sensibility. He embodies all these fi gures, creates all these
fi ctions, much as the playwright does. Iago broods often on the tech-
niques of self- extemporization: “Virtue? A fi g! ’tis in ourselves that